Ukraine's Military Faces Critical Manpower Shortage
A senior Ukrainian politician has revealed that four out of five conscripts are fleeing military training centres after being drafted into the army, exposing a deepening crisis as the country struggles to hold back Russian advances.
Roman Kostenko, secretary of the Ukrainian parliament's security, defence and intelligence committee, delivered the stark assessment during a television appearance on Saturday. "Eighty per cent of recruits are now fleeing training centres," he stated, warning that "there will soon be as many people who have abandoned their units as there are in our army."
Record Desertion Rates Amid Russian Advances
The alarming revelation comes as Russian forces tighten their grip on the strategically vital city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region. With a pre-war population of 60,000, Pokrovsk would represent the largest Ukrainian city to fall since Bakhmut in May 2023 if captured.
Official statistics paint a grim picture of the desertion crisis. According to Kyiv's prosecutor-general's office, more than 280,000 cases of desertion or absence without leave have been recorded since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. The situation is rapidly deteriorating, with more desertions occurring this year than in the entire 2022-2024 period combined.
Last month alone saw a record over 21,000 soldiers abandoning their posts, highlighting the severity of the manpower shortage facing Ukrainian forces.
Failed Reforms and International Tensions
The crisis has been exacerbated by recent policy changes. In August, President Volodymyr Zelensky introduced reforms allowing men under 23 to travel overseas, a move intended to prevent parents from sending sons abroad before their 18th birthdays. However, the policy backfired spectacularly, triggering a mass exodus of potential soldiers.
Over the past three months, approximately 100,000 young Ukrainian men have fled the country, with many heading to Germany via Poland. The situation has become so concerning that German opposition leader Friedrich Merz personally appealed to President Zelensky to stem the flow of fighting-age males to Germany.
"I asked the Ukrainian president to ensure that young men, from Ukraine in particular, do not come to Germany in ever-increasing numbers, but rather serve in their own country," Merz stated last week.
Military Consequences and Russian Tactics
The manpower shortage is having direct battlefield consequences. According to Ukrainian conflict-monitoring group DeepState, one of the brigades responsible for defending Pokrovsk had completely run out of infantry during the summer.
Ukraine's commander in chief, Oleksandr Syrskiy, has warned that the lack of soldiers is allowing Moscow to employ "total infiltration" tactics. The disparity in troop numbers is stark: while Russia maintains over 1.13 million active-duty personnel according to The Military Balance, with 640,000 deployed on Ukrainian territory, Ukraine likely has no more than 300,000 soldiers actually deployed on front lines despite a total manpower pool exceeding one million.
Russian forces recently capitalised on dense fog that hampered Ukrainian reconnaissance drones to push forward with their offensive, with between 300-500 troops entering the Pokrovsk area in a significant battlefield breakthrough.
Legal Framework and Enforcement Challenges
Despite desertion carrying a potential 12-year prison sentence during wartime, and absence without leave punishable by up to ten years, enforcement remains problematic. Military analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko revealed that only five per cent of desertion cases actually reach court.
Official data shows that between 2022 and July 2025, authorities opened 202,997 criminal cases into unauthorised abandonment of military units, with only 15,564 individuals formally charged. During the same period, 50,058 desertion cases were initiated, resulting in just 1,248 people being charged.
Kostenko criticised the government's response, stating that the country is "doing nothing to bring them back or create conditions for them to be afraid to run away and do their duty." He estimated that millions of draft dodgers are simply "walking, hiding and watching" from the sidelines.
Broader Regional Implications
The capture of Pokrovsk would represent a significant strategic and symbolic victory for Moscow, bringing President Putin closer to his stated goal of controlling the entire Donetsk region. Following this success, Russian forces are expected to set their sights on the town of Dobropillia to the north.
Meanwhile, Russian attacks continue across Ukraine. Recent strikes have included:
- A major drone attack on Dnipro that damaged the Suspilne public broadcaster's newsroom
- Missile strikes in Balakliya that killed three people and injured eleven, including four teenage girls
- Artillery attacks in Nikopol that killed two people and damaged residential buildings
- A drone strike on a Turkish-flagged tanker in the Odesa region
The United Nations estimates that Russian strikes have killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians since the full-scale invasion began nearly four years ago.
As Ukraine faces this compounding crisis of military desertion and Russian advances, the international community watches closely, with the outcome likely to shape the future security architecture of Eastern Europe for decades to come.
